Rick's Daily Tips

Scam alert: If you receive a pop-up saying “Apple wants to make changes” on your Mac, it’s probably due to a malware infection.

Posted on September 10, 2018

Lots of Mac users have started receiving pop-up messages stating something like this:

“Apple wants to make changes. Type your password to allow this.“

Questions about this pop-up are currently being asked in most all the popular Mac support forums online, and as you can imagine these folks are quite concerned that something untoward is happening with their Macs.

Well, their concern is indeed warranted because the “Apple wants to make changes…” pop-up is likely being caused by malware. [Read more…]

BookBub: A great resource for finding free and deeply discounted ebooks

Posted on September 8, 2018

If you love to read, you’re probably a huge fan of ebooks. I sure am because they’re so convenient!

Ebooks are usually priced much lower than their printed counterparts (many of them are actually free), and you can download them at any time and be reading them within minutes.

Regular readers of this blog know that Amazon has a massive selection of ebooks and that you can read Kindle ebooks without owning a Kindle device, but many of you might not be aware that there are actually other great sources of ebooks besides just Amazon. [Read more…]

Want your PC to charge your phone a lot faster? Upgrade to USB 3.0!

Posted on September 4, 2018

Does it seem like it takes forever for your phone’s battery to fully charge when it’s plugged into your PC?

Well, it isn’t your imagination. If you have an older computer it probably has the older USB 2.0 ports, and USB 2.0 supplies a paltry amount of current to devices that are connected to it.

If you like the convenience of charging your phone by plugging it in to your PC, you can easily add several USB 3.0 ports to your existing PC and your phone will charge a lot faster. [Read more…]

Q&A: Will DDR3-1600MHz RAM work with my DDR3-1333MHz motherboard?

Posted on September 3, 2018

Question from Anthony J.: Rick, I have a custom built PC with an ASUS motherboard that supports DDR3-1333MHZ RAM. It’s about 5 or 6 years old as best I can recall.

I want to upgrade the memory from 4GB to 8GB, but the only RAM sticks I could find locally are DDR3-1600MHZ. Will they work with my motherboard without damaging anything?

Rick‘s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I stop my Gmail messages from being forwarded to my ex’s email account?

Posted on August 27, 2018

Question from Cindy T.: I just found out that my ex is somehow causing all of my Gmail messages to be forwarded to his own email account.

I know he had the password to my account for a while because I let him use it when he was looking for a job (the lazy bum never did find one). I guess that’s when he set up the forwarding.

Anyway, how can I stop my emails from being forwarded to his account?

Rick’s answer: Cindy, what you’ll need to do is log into your Gmail account and disable “Forwarding” in your account settings. Here’s how: [Read more…]